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Case Study: Health Care Service Corporation Launches BlueRecruit Powered by Peopleclick

Company Cuts Time-to-Fill in IT in Half

Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) is a non-investor-owned mutual insurance company that operates through its Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) divisions in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and several subsidiaries to offer a variety of health and life insurance products and related services to employers and individuals.

Last year, the team at HCSC processed over 25,000 applications and background checks for its multiple subsidiaries – manually.

The average time-to-fill for positions was well over 100 days, which was slowing down the company’s ability to react to the ever-changing market and help keep the divisions competitive. The HR team recognized that as HCSC continued to grow, the manual process currently used would no longer scale to meet their needs.

The Challenge
“We were a totally paper driven organization,” said Mike Jarvis, senior director of strategic staffing, with HCSC. “We had a seven-page application for our candidates to complete and every requisition required the completion of a one-page paper form. We also had to manually enter our recruiting data into our human capital management system. Moving to a more efficient and user-friendly process – both for our external candidates and for our internal hiring managers and recruiters – was our number one challenge.”

In addition, the company needed an updated process to help with their sourcing strategies. “With paper you are limited and can’t cast the net as far as you would like,” continued Jarvis. “We wanted to post on job boards but were limited to those applicants that would physically fill out the forms.”

It was also important to HCSC to best portray the leading-edge institution they truly were. This needed to be reflected in every interaction that people had with the organization, including the recruitment process. Finally, it was important for the team to gain better insight into the entire process. With the paper-based system in place, the team was simply not able to track critical metrics. They needed a scalable solution that would offer an easy way to report on the status of its talent acquisition process.

The Solution
With over 25 years of experience in the recruiting industry, Jarvis knew that the partner he selected to automate his recruitment process would need to meet several key criteria. His team spent time working with hiring managers and employees to best understand the true needs of the system and began the process of identifying vendors who could help automate the process.

The most important selection criterion was ease-of-use. In reviewing some applicant tracking solutions, the team found many were simply difficult to use and therefore it would be a challenge to encourage adoption. With over 16,000 employees, 4,000 of which were hiring managers, it was critical to adopt an easy-to-use technology as everyone would need to be trained on the new system. In addition, the HCSC team wanted external users to have a positive, user-friendly candidate experience.

Jarvis’ team also sought an experienced partner who offered a solution that incorporated several other criteria including:

• A design that demonstrated a clear understanding of the recruitment process and workflow
• A tool that could be easily integrated with the company’s HRIS system
• An automated solution at a cost-effective price

 

The Results
“The initial metrics we have seen since the global implementation has proven to us that automation was really the only way to go. We have clearly been successful at getting the right talent into the right seat in a timelier manner. Our time-to-fill is way down and we can now track other recruiting metrics to identify bottlenecks and ways to correct these challenges,” said Jarvis.

In the first five months after implementing the pilot program at HCSC, the time-to-fill benchmark of over 88 days was more than halved to just 42 days – a reduction in time-to-fill of over 52 percent. The team expects this number to continue to decrease across the board.

Despite this resounding success, you won’t hear anyone talking about Peopleclick RMS in the halls at HCSC. This is because HCSC worked with Peopleclick to brand their recruitment system BlueRecruit helping to drive one of the most recognizable brands in the world and bring this brand recognition to the recruitment process.

Because the new BlueRecruit system was to be used not only for external candidates but for internal mobility as well, Peopleclick worked with HCSC to train its entire employee base. All of HCSC’s employees are presented with open opportunities and are able to apply to any position within the organization. This has totally transformed the previously siloed process constrained by paper as employees can now easily see all positions available throughout the entire corporate organization, spanning across several U.S. states.

Continued Jarvis, “The new Peopleclick system has allowed us to expand our net internally. We are able to offer employees the opportunity to change their role and the latitude to relocate as well. By keeping our most valuable resource within the company we are able to reduce costs and improve loyalty. It gives us great pride to be able to offer a tool that will enhance our employees’ careers.”

Jarvis’ team has seen impressive gains in their productivity as well. Gone are the days of faxing background check paperwork and filing applications. HCSC’s new automated system allowed the company to fully integrate with these outside processes, including third party background check and drug screening, significantly reducing the need for human intervention. Integration has been an important advantage internally as well as the system integrates with the HCSC HRIS system.

Recruiters at HCSC are focused on the highest quality candidates. The new recruitment management tool has enabled HCSC to attract a diverse, well-qualified, applicant pool and continues to foster the cutting-edge brand of the company. The new solution also took advantage of pre-employment questionnaires which allow the hiring teams to immediately qualify candidates within the system. Only the highest quality candidates are reviewed and passed on to the hiring managers.

Having a solid partner who was able to help with the implementation was a major benefit for HCSC commented Jarvis. “Peopleclick was instrumental in guiding the formal implementation plan. They have logical and methodical plans which made it possible to drive the project to completion, on-time and under budget.”

According to Jarvis, selecting a vendor to support a company’s recruitment process needs to be done carefully. “Shop wisely. There are lots of products on the market. It is critical to select a vendor who understands HR and staffing strategies. Peopleclick offers this experience along with a group of professionals who truly want their client to be successful.”